The invention covers an operation system for integrally monitoring, operating, controlling or maintaining, from a remote site, a control system of a plurality of vendors introduced and installed in a plant or a factory distributed regionally, or a device such as a sensor or an actuator connected to such a control system. The invention also covers a wired, wireless or satellite communication network system used in the operation system, and a signal relay device installed in such a communication network system described above.
The control system refers to a system composed of a plurality of vendors, and includes, for example, a building management system, an audio/video/movie production studio, a movie theather/theather system, an amusement park system, a railroad/ship/aircraft operation management system, and a hospital system, etc.
A manufacturing system for operating a plant as an aggregate of control systems and manufacturing a desired product has been proposed, in which an operation computer for remotely operating the plant and a maintenance computer for remotely maintaining the plant cooperate to control the plant.
JP-A-2001-337720 is referred to as a related art.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a communication network system as a related art. In FIG. 1, a plant 10, a factory 20, and an operation monitoring center 30 are connected to a communication network L.
The plant 10 has, for example, a control system S11 manufactured by Company A and a control system S12 manufactured by Company B. In the control system S11, devices a111, a112 such as a sensor and an actuator are connected, control operation is executed. In the control system S12, devices a121, a122 such as a sensor and an actuator are connected, and control operation is executed.
In a similar way, in the factory 20 is incorporated a control system S20 manufactured by Company C, devices a21, a22 such as a sensor and an actuator are connected, and control operation is executed.
The control system S11 in the plant 10 is connected to a wired or wireless communication network L via a modem m11. Similarly, the control system S12 is connected to the communication network L via a modem m12.
The control system S20 in the factory 20 is connected to the communication network L via a modem m20.
To the communication network L is connected an operation monitoring center 30. The operation monitoring center 30 executes operation and monitoring of the plant 10 and the factory 20. operation monitoring stations PC1, PC2, PC3 in the operation monitoring center 30 are connected to the communication network L via modems m31, m32, m33 respectively.
With this configuration, even in an operation system in which the plant 10, the factory 20, and the like are respectively distributed in a regional fashion, it is possible to operate and monitor the control systems S11, S12 in the plant 10 and the control system S20 in the factory 20 by using the operation monitoring PC1, PC2, PC3 installed in the operation monitoring center 30.
However, according to the above-described related art, communication protocols used by control systems differ in their manufacturers. Thus, it is necessary to implement a system with the operation monitoring stations PC1, PC2, PC3 provided in one-to-one correspondence with the control systems S1, S12 and S20. Therefore, the work to implement the entire system is complicated.
That is, stations dedicated to the control systems S11, S12, S20 respectively have to be prepared as the operation monitoring stations PC1, PC2, PC3.
When the communication network L is limited to a public phone line for example, a line must be reserved for communications.
Further, for the purpose of remote monitoring, a device for connecting, arranging and moving the operation monitoring station in an ad-hoc configuration for every control system is required.
An object of the invention is to provide a signal relay device, a communication network system and an operation system capable of easily implementing the entire system and efficiently remotely monitoring and operating the system, even though in the system, a plurality of control systems and of devices exists in which specifications of various kinds such as communication protocols differ in manufacturers.